hi,
I have learnt English and Hindi in school and am fairly conversant (read, write and speak matrix) in both. My education in reading and writing Malayalam is through my grandmother (hence, informal education in my own mother tongue). I have been trying to read Malayalam Wikipedia articles over the time of the WikiConference, since I wasnt able to contribute edits, and also a few regional dailies. I hope I can now begin trying to contribute to the Malayalam wikipedia. I had a chat with Shiju who suggested that I join the wikimedia-ml mailing list.
Hope that this gives context to whatever feedback I'm going to give in reply.
I don't think that as a movement, we need to look at regional language literacy. This is something that even Governments are sinking their money into and should be left to the individual to work out all by themelves. Being from a group (a minority group) that Gerard is trying to target, I would ask only for a few things: having a single place where things such as how to install an InScript keyboard, how to join the language community mailing list and perhaps some patience from the community members with the first few edits that I would do. I think this would greatly take care of this problem. It isn't that big a problem.
Our (movement's) strategies will change from language to language and hopefully, that language community will be consulted when these are implemented.
User:Prad2609
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:23:54 +0530
From: ashwin.baindur@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Supporting the languages of India
That is a good thought implied by you, Sodabottle. Perhaps, WMF would like to discuss their proposed initiatives with affected communities before they announce them. Just as a ground check rather than depending only on one's experiences. Like a last check of a compass before walking on a certain bearing so to say.
Language in India and a citizen's involvement with his language is complex, diverse and many times unusual or interesting.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Bala Jeyaraman
<sodabottle@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Gerard is trying to understand Indian culture in good faith. He has made
some assumptions that he is keen to explore. May I request that we
please discuss maturely without getting offended? We need to not only
AGF but be CIVIL also.
Unfortunately Gerard's attempt at understanding resulted in a official wikimedia blog post and might result in WMF taking a path that has a potential to damage indic wikis badly. He has written this from his position as a WMF employee. If tomorrow this translates this into official WMF policy, we cant stop the clock back. We know this from previous experience from the i18n team.
The aggressive/offended tone in a couple of posts on this thread distresses me. I humbly request that all respondents may please tone down any agression you may feel. Gerard is trying to understand Indian culture in good faith. He has made some assumptions that he is keen to explore. May I request that we please discuss maturely without getting offended? We need to not only AGF but be CIVIL also. The same points can also be made politely.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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